[Food] Laphroaig Quarter Cask salmon spaghetti

Being French, wine has always been around as I was growing up, particularly at mealtime and I learnt from my parents a few simple rules regarding the pairing of food and wine: red with meat and cheese, white with fish and seafood and rosé with salades. Obviously, you must go a step further with the type of wine you choose depending on the type of dish you are planning on serving. Wine -both red and white- was also involved in cooking, as well as some spirits, in cakes particularly (Kirsh, Grand Marnier, Cointreau, Cognac are amongst the few names which spring to mind) However whisky has never been part of the list of alcohol I ever associated with cooking or even food in general. The first time I realised it was something that could be done was during my visit of the Dalwhinnie distillery about 9 years ago now. I remember vividly asking our tour guide at the end of the visit, in front of the sign detailing the range of the "Classic Malts", what is your favourite Whisky to drink. And his answer was: "It depends what I am drinking it with, on cheese, for instance, I love to drink Lagavulin." At that particular point, I thought to myself, the French drink wine with their meal, surely, the Scots must drink whisky with theirs. It isn't quite the truth however, as I realised later on, not many Scots drink whisky with their food, but nevertheless, it showed me that it could be done. 

With the ever-growing popularity of the spirit, I reckon pairing food and whisky is going to grow and I am convinced we will see more restaurants offering what quite a few already do with wine, whisky pairing menus. I have started to experiment with whisky (peaty mainly) and food, both pairing them or actually mixing them together. I recently tried a dram of Lagavulin with some blue cheese and I will definitely combine the two again soon as the blue cheese brought all the sweetness of the Lagavulin out!

Anyway, let's get back to the actual title of the post: Laphroaig Quarter Cask salmon spaghetti...

Pairing is great, but what about cooking with malt. Some would probably say it's a waste of a good dram, but aren't you supposed to use good, drinkable wine to cook with, rather than cheap and nasty stuff? Why would it be any different with whisky.

I have tried a few things lately to see how they turn out and have never been disappointed, so far... 

And here is one of my experiments.

I love pasta, I love smoked salmon and I love Laphroaig Quarter Cask so why not combine the 3!

I don't tend to really follow a precise recipe and wanted something which would not take ages to prepare so that's what I did:

-cook some spaghetti

-cook 1/2 an onion in a frying pan with some butter until translucent 

-add 2 generous table spoons of crème fraiche to the onions with salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice and a hint of chilli powder, and heat gently

-once the creme is hot, stir in a good slice of smoked salmon cut into small pieces and a bit of tomato purée. Leave it 5 min over a gentle heat.

-finally, add a table spoon of Laphroaig QC to the salmon and crème mix and stir before pouring on top of the spaghetti. 
-I garnished the dish with some basil leaves and chopped cherry tomatoes.

Et voilà! Hardly any cooking involved, very quickly done, and what a result!

Bon appétit!